Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Agback" data-source="post: 1378911" data-attributes="member: 5328">Before dying of old age, that is. Slaves are going to dying of disease, overwork, industrial accidents, harsh disciplinary action, being killed while trying to escape, etc. And I really don't see anyone forking out for Raise Dead.They are figures I turned up in research while trying to work out what slaves should cost in my setting Gehennum. The lower limit is set by the price of slaves in ancient Rome, where people could be rounded up very cheaply across the Northern border and where people customarily manumitted their skilled and household slaves in their early thirties. The upper limit was set by the price of slaves in the USA after the British put a stop to importation, so every slave had to be bred at his owner's expense, but slaves were worked until they dropped. I figure that slaves can't be any more expensive than under those conditions, because that is the cost of breeding and raising them.Yes. And you have to discount the stream of profits the slave produces for the fact that they are delayed. 36.5 gp to be paid in fifty years' time is not worth 36.5 gp now. Assuming a 4% chance per year of premature death, escape, or crippling disease or accident, the chance of the slave living fifty years is only 13%. And assuming an interest rate of 5%, 36.5 gp due in fifty years is worth only 3.2 gp now. The expected present value of the slave's work in his fiftieth year is only 0.4 gp.A labourer does work worth 3 gp per month, but even 'self-sufficent' upkeep is 2 gp per month. The slave's net output is only 12 gp per year. Discount that at 9% per annum (4% risk plus 5% interest), and you end up with an NPV of 133.3 gp, or rather under four year's wages. And that is not taking into account incentives, rest days, declining vigour with age, and death through old age.Regards,Agback</blockquote>

Verification